Holocaust denial

Holocaust denial, or Holocaust distortion, refers to the false belief that the Holocaust did not happen, or was not as bad as it was.

Various groups and organisations use different definitions of what Holocaust denial is. One of these is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

A trend of Holocaust denial, some state-sponsored, is seen in other European countries, including Austria,^[1] Croatia,^[2] Czechia,^[1][3] Hungary,^[4] Germany,^[1] Italy^[1] and Poland.^[5][6] In the book Decoding Antisemitism, co-author Hagen Troschke said that the common strategies of such denial consisted of:

1. Making some Holocaust perpetrators^[a] look better than they were^[7][b]
2. Reducing the Holocaust responsibility to a small group of perpetrators^[7][c]
3. Doubting the scientifically proven death toll^[7][10]
4. Blaming Jews for the Holocaust^[7][d]
5. Equating the Holocaust with other crimes against humanity^[7][e]

Some scholars said that Holocaust denial had gone mainstream^[12] amid the rise of nationalism across Europe,^[13][7] where Jews were sometimes equated with the disliked Soviet communists against whom the Holocaust was considered "a reaction".^[7][8]

Some described the phenomenon with the concept mnemonic politics,^[3] where nationalist governments distorted the Holocaust by painting their ethnic majority as the victims rather than the Jews or Roma.^[3][14] Such denial is sometimes rooted in the conspiracy theory that the focus on Jews is an EU plot to suppress national identity^[3][15] and promote "cosmopolitanism" and "multiculturalism".^[3][16]

Below is a summary of usual claims made by Holocaust deniers.

Just Asking Questions (JAQ) is a pseudoskeptical tactic often employed by Holocaust deniers to promote lies about the Holocaust by phrasing them as questions.

As a similar concept to JAQ, sealioning refers to the act of repeating the same questions that have already been answered while faking ignorance and politeness.^[20] It is also a common tactic among Holocaust deniers on online forums and social media.^[21][22]

Some well-educated antisemites are more skillful at promoting Holocaust denial.^[23] They do not deny that the Holocaust happened,^[23] but they cast doubt on the Holocaust's nature,^[23] ignore the historical context leading up to the Holocaust,^[23] and abusively compare the Holocaust to other historical events.^[7][23] They do this to whitewash the Holocaust and dehumanize Holocaust victims so as to whitewash Nazi antisemitism and justify the mass murder of Jews.^[23] Such behavior is rejected by mainstream historians, including Emil Fackenheim, Yehuda Bauer, Deborah Lipstadt and Daniel Goldhagen.^[23][24]

Some of them also accuse Jews of "owning the Holocaust" or "extorting compensation from European governments",^[23] and rewrite the Holocaust's history to inflate Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germans so as to blame Jews for their own suffering.^[25] These false claims are common on social media, especially Reddit.^[26]

Historians agree that the Holocaust happened and that Holocaust deniers use bad research, get things wrong, and sometimes make facts up to support their claims.^[18][17] Many things together prove that the Holocaust did happen:

Holocaust deniers usually call themselves Holocaust revisionists to make themselves look good.^[27] Their usual claim is that the Holocaust is "a hoax made up by Jewish people working together."^[18][17] It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Israel and in many European countries, especially in Germany.^[28] Some Holocaust deniers, like Ernst Zündel, have been charged with crimes.

• International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
• Holodomor denial
• Deborah Lipstadt